Remember Me and I Will Remember You | Qur'anic Healing Episode 1

assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh Vanessa Mira Americana regime is now Mahim and I'm didi Nagano banana mean what I wanted not a lot I mean what a happy were to didn't intervene while most of us in America I've Dakota so here Muhammad in salalah on us alone my daddy he was likely as I lived to see Monica Thea I wanna welcome you all back to our nightly program keeping connected with the Quran and this is our first episode of Quranic healing and Panama as we have been connecting with the Quran in so many different ways over the last few nights from the parables to the miracles to you know the reflections and the themes we have to remember that the Quran is called a Shifa it is a healing for what is in our tests and Allah knows that we need a lot of healing at all times and especially with everything that is going on and it's wonderful to be able to approach the Quran from an interdisciplinary standpoint where we extract some of the gems and some of the miracles from its that involve layers that we probably would not have been able to consider due to our lack of expertise or whatever it may be and so we're blessed that have the lot to have with us sister Ned WA tonight and she'll want sada to help us to look at it from a healing perspective to look at a verse from a healing perspective and every week inshallah we'll be integrating the element of mental health and emotional health to understand the Quran at a deeper level and connect to it at a deeper level and to extract from its verses of healing banana high Tata and reflections of healing and so the verse we're gonna be talking about tonight inshallah toilet is fresconi ethical comb wash kurudi without took firoan verse 152 from surah Baqarah where Allah says remember me and I will remember you be grateful to me and do not deny me and I'm not going to go into detail with the verse except just the first part to touch on this idea of faith Gurunath Kodachrome remember me and i will remember you remembrance has a formal manifestation in Vika as in the ritual of thicket and remembrance is something that is inherently embedded in every one of our RIBA dots particularly RIBA thought to gloob the acts of worship that emanate from the heart and so how do you remember Allah in terms of the kid in terms of the actual practice of remembrance of Allah with the Prophet slice of them called his non-muslim what the Prophet slice I'm called the fortress of the Muslim and he sets Alliance in them that it blocks out the shape on that the remembrance of Allah blocks out the shape on that is the remembrance of Allah in terms of the F Codd subhanAllah him did not a lot like one of the various phrases that we say of glorification of declaring his perfection of affirming his want oneness of affirming his greatness and seeking his forgiveness through his to fob affirming his absolute power through the hollow l aquila billah these are some of the former remembrances and if you remember from the angel series that idea of gatherings of remembrance that whoever remembers the lost panettone says now hadith Qudsi whoever remembers me in a gathering then I remember him in a gathering better than that gathering and whoever remembers me with himself then I remember him with myself and so that's the key in that sense but Allah also calls Salah he calls prayer dicken allah calls the quran wicked itself what this means for us is that there is no elements in your life in any act of worship or otherwise that you remember Allah in the capacity of worship in the capacity of gratitude in the capacity of seeking forgiveness except that Allah will reciprocate in a better way so if you seek forgiveness from Allah Allah will overwhelm you with his mercy in a way that you would not have thought as possible if you thank Allah that thicket of Allah the the element of remembering Allah particularly an acts of gratitude I talked about when God send you a dog or a drunkard a few well it's been a long time now I think it's been like five or six weeks ago and that and that whole bar the reflections where we talked about this idea of that person who's giving water to that thirsty dog and shekel Allah kashikar Allahu da was grateful to Allah so Allah was grateful to them now I'm gonna leave that part to sister now inshallah but the idea that that person connected that I was thirsty in Allah I did for me this dog is thirsty therefore I should provide for that dog and a lot overwhelmed that person with a las gratitude to that person Subhan Allah even though Allah owes us nothing he shows his gratitude so you never remember a lot in the capacity of anything except that Allah remembers you in a better way whether it's in the capacity of worship gratitude of forgiveness and somehow it's very interesting the next ayah by the way was that you know yeah you had live enamel las pants on calls out to the believers to seek help the subuddhi was Allah with patience and prayer and some of the rhythm a said that patience here refers to the act of fasting many of them of us to Dean said that that actually means sublet here means ously on the act of fasting and Salah is the worship or the act of worship that is most befitting - gratitude and that's why shape on thought to disconnect us from Salah through making us ungrateful and so Allah says practice patience and gratitude but in the in the manifestation of actual worship deeds of worship through fasting and prayer and this is how you draw close to a loss of hanataro with works of patience and works of gratitude so inshallah tada I want to welcome with that in gelatinous sister nedra who of course needs no introduction has done many of our programs at home that I've written much at yep Ian we're very grateful for her presence we're very grateful for her insights we're grateful for what you provided to us in the post donald on and the predominant on webinar to talk a little bit about some of the elements of this ayah that we can take from a mental health perspective and from a healing perspective and shot one time use that clock there for such a warm welcome this is one of my my favorites yes because it's so simple and then the wisdom that comes from it that touches on mental health and well-being is so profound and subhanAllah when we when we think about gratefulness or even just emotions in general when we talk to our children we talked about others with primary emotions we usually think of what happiness we think of sadness we think of fear when we tell our children express yourself how do you feel do you feel angry what do we say do you feel grateful or we identify that as a primary emotion and tunnel of the the philosophers in the past used to say that a happiness is a byproduct of gratefulness that it's not that happiness is the primary emotion in of itself but it's a byproduct it's something that cannot happen unless you are grateful so I enjoy I'm just going to talk about a few things from a psycho spiritual perspective I think we all know the benefits of being grateful from a spiritual perspective it helps us connect to Allah it's comanded for us to to be grateful to him in fact it's a minor shirk when we deny the the blessings that he has bestowed on us and and we are ungrateful in that way so it's not just something that is recommended but it's something that we need that we need to do and it's in the best interest of Shaitaan as shafa'a mentioned to to take us away from allah in one of the ways that he does that is through ungratefulness and we know that in certain are off then I will come to them from before them and from behind them and on the right and on their left and you will not find most of them grateful to you so found Allah like one of his tactics one of shaytans tactics in taking us away from allah is you know not just distraction but ultimately you mean ungrateful to him and misery loves company so it's not just that Shaitaan is is ungrateful to Allah Allah just imagining what he said to Allah but that it being ungrateful is it's not good spiritually but then we also find in the mental health literature that it's not good from a from a research perspective either so it's gratefulness is something that kind of touches all aspects of our life whether it whether it's getting closer to Allah or or getting away from him but also getting going moving towards depression or moving away from it so when we when we look at the benefits of gratefulness one of the primary things that it does is that it it has healing factors in many different ways and one of that is that it protects us from cognitive distortions and if you read the trauma series that Sarah and I had done each of our chapter addresses a cognitive distortion and kind of distortion is really just a fancy term or unhealthy way of thinking and we all sometimes have unhealthy ways of thinking comment distortions but gratefulness is a way to protect ourselves from that so I'm just gonna take a couple from our series and just talk about how gratefulness protects us so catastrophizing catastrophizing is when something bad happens to us and it can be something really significant but then we turn it in to make it such a big deal and we forget the grateful that being grateful and the and the blessings that Allah has bestowed on us so let's just take a few major things like divorce or maybe you fail the semester and so if you were to catastrophize you would say something like my life is over there's nothing good about me there's nothing good in my life there's no benefit in continuing and so while these things are really significant it's just taking those things and and rejecting all of the other good things in your life and so when we look at gratefulness what gratefulness does is that shifts our mindset and it helps us identify that there are negative things that there can be negative things in our life but there's always something to be grateful for so for example if you are going through a divorce you can say wow I have wonderful children as a result of this marriage or I have learned so many things from my marriage although you know we're going to get separated if you build a semester and you can say okay well maybe I didn't do too well but I learned a lot of things or I made certain connections or and now I have the motivation to push me in ways I didn't I couldn't have done before so it's looking to that silver lining and saying yes this thing could potentially be a bad thing in my life but they're good there could be good that comes from it or there's so much other good things in my life that it's okay I can I can cope with it I can deal with it another kind of distortion is filtering and what happens with filtering is that it kind of becomes like a lens and so you end up over time filtering only the the negative things in your light or sorry you're actually filtering out the positive and you're only seeing the negative so what happens is our brains reinforce whatever it is that becomes a habit for us so if we put on these glasses and the whole world looks negative to us then all of a sudden only those negative things are going to pop out and we start to disregard some of the positives and so gratefulness again it offsets that by correcting that filter and saying you know there is negative there's so much negative in the world right now but then you know there is a lot of positive too and so it almost like it has an effect on on how we view the world which really affects everything right it doesn't just affect our mental health but also our spirituality and it protects us from falling into some of these cognitive distortions because once they set in it's very hard to to get out and as I mentioned before what happens is it gets reinforced so over time just becomes easier and easier to participate either and gratefulness or ungratefulness and so having that like that that's a major thing in terms of mental health in terms of how we look at the world the other thing is they found that just from like a chemical perspective it helps people who practice gratefulness they found in the research they have better sleep they have better heart health they have lower cortisol so even from like if we're gonna look at it from a holistic perspective because we already talked about the spiritual and then we have some dishes the cognitive if you're gonna look at it from like a physiological perspective it also can have a lot of positive effects on body as well and the research is so abundant on ungratefulness they've even found it to be an elixir a healing non-muslim researchers have said that great practicing gratefulness can be a healing and that's such a profound thing because we know that we know the benefits from a spiritual perspective but someone else to say that we already believed it but that just reinforces how important gratefulness is for her depression for example they found that it increases serotonin and dopamine something that protects you from depression for anxiety they found that practicing gratefulness activates your sympathetic system again something good for grief as as difficult as grief can be for us they found that gratefulness being grateful for whatever you lost whether it's a person or something really important to you has helped facilitate grief for those people so almost feels like there's nothing that gratefulness can't touch that it it makes it better and that's one of the reasons I love the a so much because it's literally just you know a few words and such a such a healing or for us and you know I think there are myths sometimes about gratefulness in that you know if we are are grateful that that means we can to be sad sometimes that we can't you know have grief sometimes and and they're not opposites it certainly protects us from things like depression and anxiety but you can be grateful and sad at the same time those don't contradict each other and I think sometimes people have unnecessary guilt especially when they're grieving or they're going through a hard time why am I not more grief that's something I hear a lot I should be more grateful okay and you are more grateful and continue to practice your gratefulness but it doesn't take away from from those feelings another thing that I hear often times too is when we talk about people coming to therapy like I want to come to therapy but ultimately I'm just going to be I'm just gonna be practicing on gratefulness because I'm just complaining I'm just back fighting about other people that's not what therapy is about you are not going to necessarily to complain you're going there to express your feelings express some of the difficult things that you're going through so that you can get better it's almost like being proactive you're not going there to backbite you're going there to problem-solve you know I have issues within my family and you can be grateful I'm grateful for my family but we have issues that we need to resolve and that's not back fighting so I think sometimes we have our own myths that being grateful is just having a happy face all the time it's not necessarily the case Wow so you know what are some of the ways that we can practice gratefulness we know just from from a spiritual perspective we can we can pray we can do thicket and I even ties into the beginning of the eye about remembrance of Allah remembering him praising him all those things from a spiritual connecting with him and just reflecting on zan blessings that he has given us research however shows that however research also shows that being grateful to people is a great way of fostering management and we know that we cannot oh we have to I think people in order to think a lot as well like we think the people and that we think a lot so one of the things they found in research is writing like a gratitude letter and it just takes five minutes they found that gratitude letters helped they have to they recommend that they are detailed but just five minutes and they found that just a five minute note to someone saying thank you for whatever it is that you have done has such a big impact on that person's mental health they found having a gratitude journal you know writing just having a private journal and going over the blessings that are in your life one of the easiest things you know for me is reflecting on blessings whether in the morning or in the evening it's a great thing to integrate with your children that's actually a family thing that my my husband does what are you thankful for today and that's a way of cultivating gratitude with children as well so when you go and your research about gratefulness there's so many ways to be grateful hamed inda like you know Allah has made so easy on us Wow so those are just some of just some of those thoughts so how long so many things that came to mind as you were speaking and by the way what are you grateful for we do that with our kids as well every night three things that you're getting grateful for you have to save them before you sleep and you know it definitely cultivates a great Sun soap and a lot within the family and I i want to seize upon one thing that you mentioned that really really I think hits home which is the idea of being grateful in sadness since people see those as two contradicting states that you can't be grateful unset and then you look at the structure for the ayats Allah starts off with Vic it remember him and when you remember him you can't help but be grateful to him right so it's like an extension of thicket there is no way you're going to become more aware of Allah except that you will become more grateful to Allah and then the next verse assumes that you're in a hardship all this other right stay Ino be somebody else Allah to see closeness to Allah with patience and prayer in Allah mass floppity and Allah is with those who are patient so it's like there's an assumption that look you're remembering Allah you are grateful to Allah and then as soon as something happens or as soon as you find yourself in a difficult situation you seek help through those practices of patience and prayer and so it's an assumption that you're going to face from gratitude into a state of hardship and patience in hardship is basically gratitude through perspective right you're in the midst of a hardship and you're grateful for what you still have and you know you're using all of those tools and techniques that you've mentioned that I'm obviously not familiar with in terms of the technical terminology or the full depth of those subjects but Apollo you're using the perspective to get ahead and to maintain sanity and stability you're not necessarily negating the sadness your it seems like you're magnifying the happiness or the sources of happiness that are still in your life [Music] yes and you know I love that you said that all the ayats you know tie into each other and there's so many I was just reading last night that there's so many ways to be grateful and to remember him too right that there is with our our tongue and then with through our limbs and through our heart and so like whatever circumstances that we are in sometimes we don't have the luxury of being able to run a practice openly or whatnot that there there's a way to practice gratefulness in any given situation whether you able to do it secretly or openly what's the what is the relationship I mean I think that a lot of people were talking about inflation there's a great sense of guilt so kind of a lot like when it comes to seeking help and as you were speaking the only analogy that I could make in terms of the difference between getting help which will necessarily involve some sort of divulging of details that's not in the capacity of Aviva of backbiting or gossip or chakra are just empty complaining but problem-solving though the analogy that I thought of was sinning you know the a hadith where the Prophet slicin condemned a job just to publicize your sin the prophets like son was not talking about a person who goes to get help because they have not been able to privately combat that sin the prophets like son was talking about a person who boasts and who unnecessarily exposes themselves when Allah has covered them and I think that this is an important subtle but very important point because I think it stops people from getting help sometimes because they feel like just the basic divulging of details in your life takes away from the quality of your job and takes away from your relationship with Allah so how do you tell someone that feels too guilty to go to therapy or to get help from someone whether it's in a formal or informal capacity how do you tell someone that you're not you are not betraying your faith this is not a betrayal of you're out of the quality of your door your sheykh wa but this is a means of you getting closer to a loss of how to attack but what are some things that you help people get through you know it has been a challenge and one of the things that I'm personally grateful for is that you know there has been such emerging of the field of psychology and and it's them in the past well I mean it's been forever but more recently the resources are more accessible and so I think that also one of the biggest obstacles that prevents people from seeking counseling is they have this mindset that they're going to go and talk from an honest on perspective that it's completely secular based I think a lot of people still have that image of Freud in their head you know and they're thinking okay so it's gonna be this person who I don't know that I it's shameful for me to disclose all these secrets things that I should keep private when subhanAllah when we look at therapy as a means of getting closer to Allah then I have something that that is harming me you know what for whatever reason the sadness or the grief or the anxiety is preventing me from being able to fulfill that purpose that Allah has put me put me on the earth for a lot of times you find people with depression anxiety become and they say I can't pray I can't pray I want to pray I can't well I I thought for sure and now I don't and so we find that these mental health issues when you're keeping it to yourself and it's preventing you from doing all the good deeds that you want to do how it becomes a barrier between you and your Amen so looking at it maybe from the up from another perspective that this could be a way for you to get closer to Allah this is a way to break cycles for generations that have passed down unhealthy behaviors time and time again now is it ideal to be able to solve some of these things within yourself yeah I mean of course but there shouldn't do that guilt that I am betraying my family or it's even some kind of sin you know the people that went to the prophet saw some and asks for advice and then even if you wanted to take it a step further and say let's look at it from a medical perspective you know none of us feel shame when we have diabetes or we have low blood pressure or whatever and we go to a doctor nobody I mean and you can say that there are factors that you factor personal choices that you're making that might be contributing to some of your medical conditions right but nobody goes and says well I don't want to disclose to to my doctor that you know I eat a bag of chips every day and that's why I'm we run to the doctor right fix me fix hey and so even just looking at it from that perspective that we have these professionals and you know that are available to us and that can help us and everything is face confidential it's not like your therapist will go and betray you or go to other people and expose you if they it stays private and when you do find a Muslim therapist for example they are able to connect and they're able to connect aunt so that you can start to put the pieces in your in your life and find that cycle you're still healing that we that we strive for so with that concept of therapy and you know you know I don't want this to become a full discussion on whether it's okay to go to therapy or not well we know it's okay to go to therapy but go to therapy and this is your this is your outlet I mean are there elements of do out of you know you mentioned practicing gratitude as a means of warding off looming depression that certainly does not mean that there are not levels of depression right and so are there certain things that we should keep in mind here with our personal practices right I personally by that connection right that would ward off sort of the necessity to take it to that next level to escalate it to the next level yeah there are definitely things that we can do to promote mental health and I you know you bring up something very important in that there are different kinds of depression and you know having met with people over a i-i've been able to see the the different manifestations are true for example some people it's a purely physical physiological thing so you might see a woman for example who has never experienced depression that then has a baby has postpartum depression we know that all the hormones and all that there is a big physiological aspect to it right so that's an example of something like more of a medical physiological kind of depression we know some people have environmental depression for example you might be very mentally healthy but you might live with a narcissist or someone who abuses you it's not necessarily you it's your environment or you know in a very common thing is you might have a boss right who is just very very toxic it's not necessarily you but it's a your environment so that can cause you know depression some of us might be engaging in unhealthy behaviors you know poor diet not getting the sleep that we need to are not getting a lot of exercise all these things can contribute to depression so there are some people who is kind of personal choices and so those are things that they can control that we can control and think that we should look at we're practicing gratefulness falls into that category of something that's protective something we have a choice with and then I've seen spiritual depression where you know you see people who if the direct result of disobeying Allah like they there is there are certain students that they are they are they know are wrong and they continue to do for whatever reason and it brings so much so much trouble to their life and just as a direct result and sometimes they say okay well I feel like you know you know Allah hates me because you know I'm committing these sins and you know bad things are happening and I try have them distinguished there are natural consequences to your actions so if you are engaging and think that you shouldn't be doing whether illegal or whatever there's going to be natural consequences you might argue that by Allah you know punishing you or whatnot might actually be something good for you and then he's trying to deter you from that but I just there is a spiritual depression and sometimes people have a combination of all of them so in terms of what we can control focusing on the behaviors we can control like eating sleeping having good company reading the Quran you know although I think bicker also there's research that it boosts mental health so those are the things that we can control and we should do those but then when it becomes a physiological thing like postpartum depression which is very common and then that's something that we need to go after if it's something spiritual also consulting with an amen so it kind of depends on what the person has but for sure we can be proactive in getting the help that we need and safeguarding not just our mental health but spiritual health as well there was one thing you mentioned and perhaps we can talk a little bit about this why do we feel so good when we do something good for someone else and they thank us right like you know the the way that you feel when you do something where you work an act of gratitude so you you send someone something that they weren't expecting you basically show a sign to someone else excellence to someone else right because you exceed their expectations of you and then you see a heartfelt thank you note write a text message and it brings joy to you why is that you know I I was reflecting on that awhile ago I don't know that they know but we can we have a lot of potential ideas as to why this might happen it could be just inherent blessings of Allah in that like we are thankful to the people and we know that when we're thankful to Allah he gives us more it could be that just by itself but if we were going to look at it from with a pro-social behavior when we are we do good things for other people for whatever reason it makes us feel good it releases certain chemicals in our brain and also it just when we see someone else reciprocate that also makes us feel good and it motivates us to want to do more so it's one of those things where like so much good come from it in so many different aspects it's hard to know which one causes it but if you're right I mean the research totally supports that when you do something good for somebody it definitely comes back magnified so the reason why I was asked because and I think you know from from a Checotah to Allah that's cool Rooney Ithaca Rock'em remember me I will remember you Allah does not need you to remember him but if you remember him it's for your own good whether you remember him or not it is not going to affect him Subhanahu WA Ta'ala it will affect us watch guru D and be grateful to me not because a lot needs your gratitude but it's good for you I was just reflecting on a statement from I thought about him a lot and he was talking about good deeds because good deeds are purest when they're done out of a sense of she'll go to Allah that is asan right that's excellence that you feel motivated by just how the prophets I son did when he when he stood up and prayed all night should I not be a grateful I've done shakoora should I not be a grateful servant to Allah somehow no time and I thought him Allah he said that everything that happens in life every good that you have it expires you know it has it has a term to it an expiration to it right but when it comes to good deeds you feel good when you do good deeds you feel good every time you think back and remember that good deed so there's a Vica of the good deed and sure from the loader was talking about this by the way in our poetic reflections so so the remembrance of the Nara is an error actually I was talking about in the webinar the remembrance of the naira is enormous so he said to remember the way you know to remember the good deed like you don't look back and say that time I you know I did a p.m. at that time I volunteered and I hated it no I mean you feel good when you think back to it and he said the greatest joy is when you meet Allah with that good deed so three periods of joy the joy of doing the good the joy of remembering the good the joy of being remembered with the good on the day of judgment because you allow remind you of the good on the day of a judgment that you did and Allah rewards you for it and you know you think about the blessing of good deeds like when you think back to the time that you reach that you were a source of joy in someone else's life that you acted gratefully towards someone and that you lit up someone's life that person felt good especially if it's someone that's beloved to you every time you think about it it's it's a sweet memories of yeah it's so beautiful that we go back to alone with with those good deeds waiting for us sometimes I hear people say well I you know I do things for other people and they don't reciprocate or they don't do something back to me but when you do for the sake of Allah you know that no matter what inshallah he's going to reward you for that good deed so doing it for his sake alone Subhan Allah is something that nobody would be add to me that nobody would be able to fulfill besides him and that's why some of the element they said South Korea at Kuroko is not wash guru - guru kun because it's already established that remember me I remember you so it's not be grateful now be grateful to you because that's established in the first part of the ayah remember me and I'll remember you and some people hold back doing good deeds or showing acts of gratitude because the fear of rejection writer it's not going to be reciprocated but with a lie you have that certainty that it will be reciprocated right so that fear is gone you don't have to worry about it not being repaid in a way that's gonna disappoint you or not even being acknowledged right it's a kind of money the second law of faith on sister Najma this is very beneficial hum did not may Allah reward you and they lost Hannah Montana allow all of the people that are typing good things and saying is I can low high don t may a lot allowed to overwhelm you in your life with good in the night on and be a source of buttock in your life as well so we're grateful to you it have enough for joining us tonight and in Charlotte Anna every Friday we will have another element of this inshallah so we'll have also sister Saudis will on insha'Allah doctor Manya wat doctors oh hey doc doc man to continue to talk about Quran as she thought as healing and what the details and of course this coming Monday in Chawla Tata will continue with photonic parables and our nightly Quranic program in childhood keeping connected with the Quran so does a qualified unto to you once again into everybody for attending tonight

Channel: Yaqeen Institute

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Length: 35min 32sec (2132 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 05 2020